10 years ago I hated Rowan Atkinson. I hated "Mr. Bean" because I'm biased against shows about stupid looking morons bumbling around like shitheads and sucking my brain cells into their black hole of stupidity, let alone shows from England. You can imagine my disdain when a movie-length feature found its way into American theaters. I don't have anything against British sitcoms (I'll yank out your toenails and shove them through your eyes if you call them "Britcoms") per say. I've seen every episode of "Are You Being Served?" and, though I didn't start getting the jokes until I got older (and though it's technically a sketch comedy show and not a sitcom), I've been watching reruns of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" since I was 8. Granted, I've never really sought out anything more than what I'd casually come across late at night on PBS, but I've got no grudge with Limey TV. Speaking of which, that's how I came across "The Black Adder"...

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Back to Rowan Atkinson, despite my hatred of the man, sometime around 1998 I found myself lounging around with nothing to watch on TV while waiting for my shift at the Steakhouse to roll around. Comedy Central was showing Atkinson's one-man show (not to be confused with the One-Man Gang...) "Rowan Atkinson: Not Just Another Pretty Face" and despite my then dislike for stand-up comedy too, it was better than whatever else was on. By the time it was over, my prejudice against Rowan Atkinson had waned and I was ready to give the man another shot at not making me hate him. Sadly this special is hard to come across as it's way out-of-print and not available on DVD. If anyone's interested in going in on it with me though, there are a couple of wildly overpriced copies of the VHS on amazon.com that I'd be willing to make DVD transfers of for whomever joins me on this cunning plan of mine. E-mail me (tombofanubis@yahoo.com) if you're interested. Anyway, my Evil Dead Bride and I came across "The Black Adder" recently late one night on PBS and I found that I really liked it. Believe me, I'm as surprised as you. As such, we NetFlixed the entire series (four seasons with each season consisting of six 30 minute episodes) and have since sat through them all before getting to this, Blackadder: Back & Forth.

For those of you who know the show (or at least it's concept) you might want to skip the next paragraph, but for anyone who's yet to be introduced to the artificial lineage of the Blackadders, here's an intro. The original series, "The Black Adder" centered around Prince Edmund of Edinburgh who lived in the Dark Ages and spent his time scheming to get his father King Richard IV's throne. Edmund was an incompetent guy with an even more incompetent sidekick/servant named Baldrick and, as is often the case with those carrying delusions of grandeur, Edmund himself thought that he was sly, sleek and deadly like the venomous Black Adder snake. As such, he changed his name to "The Black Adder" and died like he lived: a loser. The three seasons to follow focused on future branches of Edmund's family tree, now bearing the last name of "Blackadder", all named "Edmund" and, oddly enough, all accompanied by a lower class twit named Baldrick. However, unlike their power hungry ancestor, these Edmunds were only interested in living a comfortable life free of responsibility and effort and follows their comedic determinations to keep it that way, surrounded by a very familiar supporting cast that included recent Golden Globe winner Hugh Laurie of Fox's "House" in a decidedly different and decidedly British polar opposite of his American TV persona.

Sorry about all the padding ladies and gents, but the special itself is only 30 minutes long and this is what professional writers call "padding". I'll get on with it now.

As such, that all brings us now to our feature, Blackadder: Back & Forth. The setting is 1999 and the latest branch of the Blackadder tree is a wealthy British Lord by the name of, yes, Edmund Blackadder. Lord Easy E is celebrating the end of the millennia with his posse and, in the spirit of the evening, unveils to his homies his latest invention: a time machine built to the specifications of blue prints drawn by Leonardo (like the Ninja Turtle) Da Vinci (like the Code)! Intending to fleece his amigos of £10,000 each, Blackadder bets them that he can actually go back in time with the oversized washing machine and bring back several specific items from history of their choosing. Though his original intention is to have Baldrick appear from a trap door and supply him with the various items in order to trick his thick-headed socialite friends/suckers, of course that wouldn't be interesting enough to carry the story for half-an-hour and it turns out that the machine (actually assembled by Baldrick, despite the servant's noted illiteracy) actually works as Eddie and Bald-O are zipped through the fabric of time and space into the past. However, since Baldrick never got around to writing the necessary info on all the switches and dials, the less-than-dynamic duo has no idea where they're heading. As a result they wind up killing a T-Rex with Baldrick's unwashed under shorts, punching out William Shakespeare (Colin Firth), convincing the so-called "Merry Men" to turn Robin Hood into a human pin cushion while Edmund bags Maid Marion (Kate "the coke fiend" Moss), narrowly avoiding exploding death in the sights of battling space cruisers and charging Scottish hordes, and crushing the Duke of Wellington prior to his battle with Napoleon at Waterloo. By the time they make it back to the present, Robin Hood has been wiped from the history books (not that he actually existed to begin with mind you), William Shakespeare is no longer the legendary Bard but rather the inventor of the ballpoint pen, and England is now ruled by France. Of course Edmund and Baldrick must return to the points in time that they fucked up, but maybe with a few bumps to the time stream in their favor? Come on, you can't expect to give the ultimate power of time travel to a Blackadder and not expect him to reap some kind of benefit from it, can you?

Before watching Back and Forth, the comments I'd heard about it from others were pretty consistent and all said that it wasn't as good as the show itself was. Back and Forth was created exactly a decade following the end of the series and was done by the same writers and with the same cast, so I don't see what the problem is. Though I think the concept could have benefited from an expansion into another six episode series (or at least into a full 90 minute feature), I think what we're presented with works fine as it stands. If you've seen the shows that came before, you already know what to expect from all of the characters, so it's not as if you need an extensive length of time to flesh out the characters. Though the special lacks any authority figures to foil this generation's Blackadder, this only serves as a reason to wrap the whole thing up in a 30 minute span. Seriously, with no one to stop him, why would a Blackadder family member need more than 30 minutes to figure out how to make everything in his life perfect with something like a time machine dropped into his lap!? It's not perfect but it fits into the continuity of the character and the series and I think that's one of the reasons that it works perfectly fine for me. I think it was as funny as any episode of the series, perhaps with the exception of the episodes featuring Rik Mayall, who pops up here to play Robin Hood, simply because the man needs more screen time. Hell, this could've been 30 minutes of nothing but him and I'd still think he didn't get enough attention! He was the only redeeming factor of Drop Dead Fred and even then he wasn’t half as good as he was in the “Blackadder episodes.

Despite the fact that Richard Curtis has done nothing but those fucking Hugh Grant romantic comedies since "Mr. Bean" ended, I think that he and Ben Elton still know what they're doing as far as writing historic comedy. If everybody got together and slapped a few more chapters into the Blackadder family history, I'd definitely watch it. As far as the cast goes, Atkinson has proven himself yet again as the perfect scumbag and the man should play nothing but villains and skeev bags for the rest of his life. Robinson is pathetic and pitiful as Baldrick and it's sadly endearing in his own way. I was disappointed that Hugh Laurie's time on screen was so limited, especially after seeing so much of him in the latter half of the "Blackadder" shows. If the only thing you've ever seen the man do is play a bitter, sarcastic, crippled, American jerk-off, prepare to be picking your mandible up from the shag carpeting when you see him here because he's so damn British and goofy it's alarming. You'll think you've fallen into some kind of alternate backwards dimension where people wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people. As for the rest of the regulars, Tim McInnerny is just as sad and hapless as ever as he continues to play the members of the Darling family, Stephen Fry is his usual pleasantly husky and out-of-touch form as the latest piece of the Melchett brood, Miranda Richardson is still welcome to do the reverse cowboy with me because she's too irresistibly friggin' cute for some reason and, despite the well documented (as in, I just said this in the last paragraph) criminal misuse of Rik Mayall, the man's turn as Robin Hood was great, albeit brief. I'd like to see him in a scene with John Cleese and Cary Elwes where the three just dress in their green tights and pointy caps and play off of each other for 20 minutes.

All in all I think it's a fitting finish to the TV series, though purists would disagree as the finale of "Blackadder Goes Forth" stands as a more "official" finish to the bloodline... though a wholly depressing one. Despite the fact that he's supposed to be a bad guy and a jerk, I still wanted the Edmund Blackadders of history come out on top and I prefer to think that this is how it happens, not... well... I won't spoil it for those of you to yet see the series. Hey, at least give it a try. You never know what you might like before some faceless entity in cyberspace claiming to be a Death God with the head of a jackal pushes it on you...